As concerns about global warming continue to heat up, one of Silicon Valley’s biggest venture-capital firms is turning to Al Gore to help it make bets on companies and entrepreneurs trying to solve the problem.

The former vice president, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this year for bringing attention to the issue of climate change, is joining Kleiner Perkins Caufield, the firm that helped spawn Google and Amazon, as a partner.

The move comes as a growing number of venture-capital firms are looking to expand beyond their traditional investments in fledgling Internet, software and biotechnology companies into the increasingly hot “green” and “clean-tech” sector.

As part of the pact unveiled yesterday, Kleiner Perkins partner John Doerr will join the advisory board of Generation Investment Management, the investment fund Gore started with Goldman Sachs banker David Blood in 2004 to invest in environmentally and socially responsible companies.

“Gore will help innovators and entrepreneurs accelerate their business, technology and policy solutions for the most critical problem of our time,” Doerr said yesterday.

Gore said he will donate his new salary as a Kleiner Perkins partner to the Alliance for Climate Protection, the Palo Alto think tank he launched to focus on solving the climate crisis by pushing for policy changes.

Stock options – typically where the real pay bonanza is for VCs – won’t be part of his donation.